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Monday, January 16, 2017

John Lewis slobbers over himself as an 'Icon,' but what about these 'White Privileged Guys,' who cared...and died?

Isn't it a shame these Civil Rights Activists, which included two 'White boys' didn't live to share

ICON status with you, John Lewis?

The following reprint is from History.com, remembering the day, and those which followed the events leading up to the murder of three young men, including two white crusaders, who dedicated themselves, and ultimately their lives to insuring the civil rights of black Americans in Alabama and Mississippi.

Were they also Civil Rights Icons, John Lewis...

or do you hold exclusive rights to that honor?

*1964

The KKK kills three civil rights activists

Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney are killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob near Meridian, Mississippi. The three young civil rights workers were working to register black voters in Mississippi, thus inspiring the ire of the local Klan. The deaths of Schwerner and Goodman, white Northerners and members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), caused a national outrage.

When the desegregation movement encountered resistance in the early 1960s, CORE set up an interracial team to ride buses into the Deep South to help protest. These so-called Freedom Riders were viciously attacked in May 1961 when the first two buses arrived in Alabama. One bus was firebombed; the other boarded by KKK members who beat the activists inside. The Alabama police provided no protection.

Still, the Freedom Riders were not dissuaded and they continued to come into Alabama and Mississippi. Michael Schwerner was a particularly dedicated activist who lived in Mississippi while he assisted blacks to vote. Sam Bowers, the local Klan’s Imperial Wizard, decided that Schwerner was a bad influence, and had to be killed.

When Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, a young black man, were coming back from a trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi, deputy sheriff Cecil Price, who was also a Klan member, pulled them over for speeding. He then held them in custody while other KKK members prepared for their murder. Eventually released, the three activists were later chased down in their car and cornered in a secluded spot in the woods where they were shot and then buried in graves that had been prepared in advance.

When news of their disappearance got out, the FBI converged on Mississippi to investigate. With the help of an informant, agents learned about the Klan’s involvement and found the bodies. Since Mississippi refused to prosecute the assailants in state court, the federal government charged 18 men with conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.

Bowers, Price, and five other men were convicted; eight were acquitted; and the all-white jury deadlocked on the other three defendants. On the forty-first anniversary of the three murders, June 21, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter. The 80-year-old Killen, known as an outspoken white supremacist and part-time Baptist minister, was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

We thought you should know about these courageous young men, who died for their belief that all people, regardless of color, should have equal rights under the Constitution of the United States of America.

We thought you should know. People such as John Lewis, and the Democrat Cult which owns him, would prefer historical facts like these remain buried. Painting all white people in this nation as Racist is far more profitable, in both money and votes, for these people. It is time to break this never ending cycle of hatred, and work for the unity of all Americans.